Consonance in the Qur'an

The textual feature of consonance contributes effectively in the conceptual thrust of the text. This book provides an in-depth account of inter and intra-sentence consonance in Arabic. It expounds the impact of contextual and co-textual factors upon the occurrence of the verb, passive participle, active participle, plural of paucity, plural of multitude, the feminine noun, and the phonetic form of a given lexical item. It also expounds rigorously the different levels of linguistic analysis in the light of the modern European linguistic theory of text linguistics. Consonance in the Qur'an provides 11 linguistic levels of analysis as well as 10 sub-levels of Arabic discourse. These include: (i) the grammatical level which accounts for the grammatical features of modification, word order, grammatical form of words, and grammatical functions of words, (ii) the stylistic level which accounts for the stylistic feature of antithesis, shift in cohesive devices, and selection of words, (iii) the lexical level which accounts for lexical variation, (iv) the semantic level which investigates the semantic componential features of words, semantic connectivity among sentences or macro texts, the semantic connectivity between a word and a leitmotif, and the collocation of concepts, (v) the phrase level which deals with the occurrence of refrains, (vi) the contextual level which accounts for the impact of context on the juxtaposition of leitmotifs, (vii) the co-textual level which accounts for the grammatical construction, stylistic variation, the ad hoc selection of words, and morphological form of words, (viii) the thematic level which investigates the linear order of themes, (ix) the letter and word level which accounts for stylistic symmetry and rhyme phrases, (x) the level of formulaic expressions, and (xi) the phonetic level which accounts for phonological features of words.

This book is a vital source for linguistics and Islamic studies students and for researchers. It provides empirical textual, grammatical, semantic, stylistic, and phonetic analysis of Arabic. Detailed analysis of the notions of conceptual sequentiality and intertextuality are given with numerous examples. Consonance in the Qur'an investigates linguistic structuring at the micro and macro levels of Arabic. In order to show the reader how conceptual and intertextual links are maintained within a text, this book provides a textual bird's-eye view of the thematic and leitmotif compartments which are the constituent units of the macro text.